Oh where, oh where did my Lego go...

I think toy manufacturers should be required to provide a suitable container with child-proof lock on every toy they make that has more than 3 pieces. I don't know how it is in the houses of other people who have children, but in our house we have bins and tubs and crates full of miscellaneous mismatched pieces from every toy the children have ever owned. This keeps the pieces off the floor, but is not very helpful when you have a bored 2 year old who is busy undecorating the Christmas tree because he can't find anything to play with.

For some strange reason, my children have a habit of not wanting to play with a certain toy until all of its pieces have been scattered to the four winds. Yesterday Connor found one of the half dozen wooden puzzle boards we have sitting around the house.....and one puzzle piece. (Note: it's one of the sort where you have individual pieces with a little knob, not the sort with actual fit-it-together pieces). So this morning, when I realized he was going to stand there and pull all the decorations off the tree if I didn't find him a diversion, I went on a puzzle piece finding mission. It took me about 45min. but I managed to scrape together 3 puzzle boards with at least 1/2 their pieces and presented them to him with a flourish. He was ecstatic.

Now, I've been trying to teach the children to put their toys away. Unfortunately, many of their toys-with-small-parts didn't have containers. I think I need to go find some sturdy reusable bags or some such so that they (and I) can toss everything that goes together in one bag, close it up and THEN put it in the bin and everything will stay together.

Am I the only mom who gets frustrated with this?

I mean, really. We own 2 complete sets of wooden blocks. My little guy loves blocks right now. He played with some at his grandparent's house. So where are ours? Well, here a block, there a block, everywhere a block block....

Christmas is coming. I think that this year I will find some seal-up-able containers for any toys-with-pieces so that at least the NEW toys get to stay a set for a while. I know, I know, I'm a little OCD. But guess what? When I present the children with a long lost finally reunited toy set......they PLAY with it and don't get bored and start fighting with each other. Charlotte always reacts like it's Christmas all over again when I find one of her long lost toys. She does that cute little giddy girl gasp and her eyes light up.

So, yeah, that's worth a little (or a lot) of sorting. My first New Year's resolution....

Your mission, should you choose to accept it...

Lately, God has asked me to do a lot of kooky things. But, knowing me as well as He does, He usually filters them through my friend Dorothy, from whom I'll believe anything. D and I are in ministry together. We're a team, though we have no official designation. I'm the Elisha to her Elijah. If I have a title, it would have to be Dorothy's Right Arm. God gives her these wonderful mind-blowing ideas for cutting edge, experiential worship. She's the forest thinker. I, for some reason known only to God, have the ability to help her flesh these ideas out into the nuts and bolts needed to actually get it done. I'm the tree thinker, I'm good with details.

This week, my assignment is boxes - specifically, wrapping a bunch of empty boxes to use as fake "presents" for our upcoming Christmas drama set. Sometimes, it's a good thing to be a saver - I happened to have enough boxes lying around my house and didn't have to go out box hunting (similar to fox hunting, without the gun). See, God knows if He said, "this week I really need you to go forth and wrap some boxes" I would say, "Excuse me? What?"

In the year or so that D and I have served together in ministry at our current church I have found myself doing the following:

1. Making a life size mirror frame and being a mime "reflection" on stage.
2. Making a giant heart out of red cloth and pool noodles.
3. Spent an afternoon researching scent diffusers (and doing lots of "sniff" tests to weed out obnoxious or allergy provoking scents.)
4. Carting around big pieces of cardboard for our cardboard testimony service.
5. Measuring giant lengths of cloth using D's garage floor marked off as a measure and then cataloguing and wrapping them onto bolts.
6. Teetering precariously from the top of a 15 ft. ladder pinning various sorts of cloth all around the stage area.
7. Carrying all sorts of miscellaneous set design accoutrements in my purse and pockets - safety pins, tape, gaffers clips.
8. Spent an afternoon discussing the logistics of making bread in a bread machine and how to time it for communion.
9. Spent countless hours researching such things as stage light gels, stage flat foam, and flannel board figures.
10. Created a giant life-size flannel board for Easter service.

I'm sure I've forgotten some, but those are the most memorable ones that spring to mind. It's funny and amazing how God has found me a niche that only I can fill. I've always been a Jill-of-all-trades (or, as I like to put it, a Renaissance woman). Like my dad, I know a little bit about a lot of stuff, and I'm good at researching what I don't know. I'm not an artist, per se, but I have enough creative/artistic ability to manage in many different areas. I can draw some, paint some, sew some, craft some, fix some. I have a working knowledge of carpentry and have learned how to jeri-rig most anything (from the Fix It Master, my husband). And what I don't know how to do I can learn pretty quickly.

Who but God would have designed this crazy ministry position for me? We have an actual group; we call ourselves the pPod (because many of us are a "P" on the Myers-Briggs) but really my ministry is to be Dorothy's assistant/right arm/tree detail person/researcher. I'm sort of an adjunct part of the creative team, but not exactly.

I don't even really know what I'm doing. I'm making it up as I go along. But since Dorothy says she is too, I guess that's okay. I worry sometimes that what I'm doing is not significant (in the big picture). I mean, I'm not helping orphans in Russia or treating AIDS patients in Africa. But as I was driving along praying about this God whispered in my ear that perhaps I might encourage or open the door for God to speak to those who will. Hmmm. Food for thought.

In the meantime, I have some boxes to wrap.

Things I never thought I'd hear myself say to my children

My baby son is 2. I just caught myself saying,

"Connor Morgan Smith, you put that heating register back on right now!!"

Sheesh....

(Whose crazy idea was it to just shove the silly thing into the hole in the floor without bolting it down, anyway?)

December mishmash

I've been telling my friends and family lately than I've only got 2 brain cells functioning right now, and sometimes one of them is sleeping. This is making it difficult to finish anything - a project, a task, a thought. Or a post. I've started and not finished half a dozen posts in the last week or so, and since I can't seem to write a few coherent paragraphs on any one topic I'm posting a mishmash of all the various topics that have buzzed around my brain this last week.

1. I've been preparing for #1 Son's birthday this week. I try really hard to make sure his mid-December birthday doesn't get swallowed up by Christmas or Christmas-ized (i.e. wrap his presents in Christmas paper or "combine" the 2 because it's easier). It kind of makes my world topsy-turvy trying to accomplish this but then, he's made my world topsy-turvy from the minute my water broke at 4:30 AM four and a half weeks before his due date. From the moment of his impending birth this child has defied and scrambled our expectations. Too smart for his own good (and ours!) he's a musical genius with the memory of an elephant, currently obsessed with fighting "baddies" on his video games and voraciously reads Calvin and Hobbs. He can remember an incident that happened 4 years ago in perfect detail, has perfect pitch and the ability to transpose music, but is unable to get himself ready for school without intervention. Parenting this child is like trying to fly an aircraft by trial and error. We crash and burn a lot.

2. My dad passed away four years ago this coming January. The last time I saw him was Christmas of 2004. I've been thinking about him a lot this year. It's funny the things you remember about someone after they're gone.

My dad loved Christmas, everything about it. But Christmas always brought on the one and only fight I ever remember my parents having. It was an annual fight. The Annual Christmas Tree Fight. All other times of the year, in all other situations, my folks may have disagreed or sniped at each other in vague mutters, but the Annual Christmas Tree Fight became legendary in our family. That's because my mom wanted the Christmas tree to be as Easy as Possible, while my dad wanted it to be as Traditional as Possible. Given her druthers, mom would have been perfectly satisfied with a little, even (gasp!) artificial table tree. Dad wanted the biggest, bushiest, Christmasy-looking tree that could possibly fit in our living room. Of course, I sided with Dad.

Daddy wanted to go to the nearest place, find the first tree that fit the bill no matter the cost, and go home, mission accomplished. Mom wanted to look over every tree, agonize, and bargain hunt. NOT a good combination. Especially when 3 out of 4 years our Christmas tree shopping day turned out to be the coldest, windiest day of the season (sometimes it snowed). So what usually happened was Daddy and I picked the "perfect" tree, Mom pronounced it "too expensive" or "too tall" or both, and then we all walked around looking for a "runner-up" but usually ended up coming back to the first one when Daddy complained that he was starting to freeze solid.

Then he would wrestle the huge tree into the trunk of the car, tie it down, and cautiously drive home. Once home, Mom would get to gloat silently (or not so) as Daddy swore at the tree that was too big to fit through the door, too big to fit in the tree stand, and nearly too tall for the ceiling. Ah, Christmas memories.....

Daddy and I would labor over putting the lights on just right, Mom and I would decorate it, and then we'd all congratulate ourselves on the beautiful tree that "we" had picked out.

3. My 5 year old daughter is currently obsessed with My Little Pony. She has begged for the big Pinkie Pie stuffed pony since summer. (Santa was smart and went shopping in September and hid it away.) I just found out that my friend D is using the two Pinkie Pie ponies she got for her granddaughters as props for our Christmas drama at church. Which Charlotte and I are in. You parents see what's coming don't you? Ay yi.....

Well, time for me to go and bake a birthday cake.

A funny thing happened on the way to Supertarget

I saw a sign that I wanted to send in to the guy who does the Crummy Church Signs website. Posted on the sign of one of Manassas' most prominent churches was the following:


SUNDAY
HUMILITY

8:30 and 11:00AM TRADITIONAL
9:30AM CONTEMPORARY

I kid you not.

I laughed hysterically to myself as I drove. I'm sure the drivers around me thought I'd flipped my lid.

But often I find God sends a lesson couched in a laugh. It occurred to me it might be worth pondering Traditional vs. Contemporary Humility. What do you think?

Ponderings and busywork

What an odd day it's been. First, I got up really early (like 5:30 am early) in the hope that maybe if I got ME up early I could manage to get the KIDS up early. It sort of worked , but not quite how I'd planned. Charlotte woke up with me (because she has this habit of sneaking into our bed after we're asleep, and no I suppose we shouldn't let her do it, but we're ASLEEP when it happens). Anyway, so I had to be in "mom mode" immediately, which I hadn't quite planned on. but we got her dressed, I fixed her a nice oatmeal breakfast, and she played happily till it was time to go out the door. Chris still had to be hoisted out of bed. This is the kid who's up at 7am on a Saturday, go figure. He gets ready with slightly less angst than usual and STILL manages to dawdle over breakfast even though he's got 30 minutes more time than he normally does. So all is looking pretty good, we all get in the car (yes, we take the car to the bus stop in winter because it at least keeps the baby out of the wind or rain - also corrals the older two). and Chris pitches a fit because today HIS bus arrives first instead of his sister's. Like I have control over the bus schedule - sheesh.

Had a normal morning once I got home - fed the cat, fed the boy, got caffeine fix, checked email and blogs, fed self. About 10:30am I realize that if I'm going to do the dreaded Walmart run I need to get ready so I toss myself through the shower (since I've decided it makes more sense to wait these days). It's nice to not have to rush, and the hot water helps soothe the muscles that work harder everyday to tote a growing toddler in, out, up, and down everything. So I get out, expecting to dash off and do my thing, but my body has other ideas. It says to me "Hey! We got up at 5:30 this morning and you only got 6 hours of sleep - we need a break!" Which normally I would ignore, toss more coffee down my gullet, and soldier on. But after the past two days of struggle with cranky kids and a winter concert and a Girl Scout investiture and extra errands I decided my body had the right of it today. Since the little boy was safely tucked up in his room with his toys, I snuggled back down into my flannel sheets and dozed.

While I was lying there, I thought about how everyone talks about "resting in God". And not for the first time wondered if maybe that could sometimes be taken literally. Maybe it's kind of like what they tell you in the emergency airline instructions - you know, putting your own oxygen mask on before helping someone else? Maybe resting in God isn't only about the spiritual. Maybe it's okay if we rest our tired bodies and souls too. Maybe I don't have to operate at the breakneck pace some other moms I know do - I learned a while ago that I am not Supermom - nor do I want to be. Maybe it glorifies God more to be a happier healthier mommy who doesn't feel like she's on her last nerve, rather than a mommy who Gets It All Done.

Maybe it's okay to listen to the natural rhythms of my body - even when they don't make sense to anyone else. And really, if the Word became flesh to dwell among us - doesn't Jesus already know how tired and sore these frail bodies can get, since He spent so much time going around healing them?

Well, anyway - 20 minutes later I felt MUCH more ready to tackle Walmart during the Christmas season. And that's worth it right there.

This wasn't covered in my Mom Manual....

There is a lot in the average day of the average mom that borders on the absurd. Those things and events which are completely out of our control which either make you want to laugh or cry (sometimes both).

No matter how a mom tries to plan her day, these absurd things insist on happening. While I was sitting at my keyboard typing up that last post and preparing to go run a few errands, I noticed it had suddenly become very quiet upstairs. Not quite daring to believe my little guy had actually given up and fallen asleep, I opened the door to check on him. Opening the door gently so as not to wake him, a couple inches across the floor the door goes "bonk" on something in its path. Hmm, Connor must have pushed the stool in front of the door again. I look down. And just around the corner of the door I see a tuft of blond hair. Oh.....dear. Connor didn't push an object in front of the door. He plunked HIMSELF in front of the door - and then fell asleep. This is not covered in any of the parenting books. I can't reach far enough around the door the roll him out of the way, and I hate to wake him up if he's that tired. Guess I'm not supposed to run errands today.

In need of a change

There's got to be a better way. I just haven't figured it out yet.

I've got a few personal puzzles rambling around in my brain in need of a solution. This morning was awful, and something's got to give before I go crazy(er). I haven't any solution yet, but these are the main conundrums I've been pondering in the last week or two:

1. I need a new morning routine. The old one (before Charlotte was in kindergarten) just flat out does...not....work....anymore. I keep assuming if the kids get enough sleep they'll bounce out of bed and get ready for school with little or no prodding. Ha....ha. For the past 3 nights I've tried to make sure everyone was in bed early. Last night everyone but Brian was in bed by 9:30 - including me. Didn't. Make. One. Bit. Of difference. Grrrr. In fact, it was worse. I'm not sure what's behind it but Chris has taken a sudden turn of Stubborn on and I'm tired of having to oversee the putting on of EACH piece of clothing, the finishing of EVERY before school task. I don't know if the solution is his own personal schedule, a new alarm clock (that actually wakes him up), an earlier wake-up time, or a cattle prod but if I have one more send-off like this morning I'll be looking for that padded room sooner rather than later.

And, oh yeah - morning showers in the winter are less than pointless. After running around getting everyone ready and standing out in the frigid morning air for 20 minutes at the bus stop with a hood (or 2) clamped over my head I may as well not have bothered - 1/2 hour saved on morning routine.

2. Somehow, some way I am not going to fall into the Christmas Craziness trap. I'm not sure how, but there has got to be a way to simplify. I did start my shopping back in the fall, so I'm about half done. I'd also like to avoid the overspending thing. I always expect too much of myself in this department. Maybe this could be the year I concentrate on the traditions that are really meaningful to me and my family and skip the rest.....for real, this year.

3. I need at least a temporary solution to the cognitive dissonance I've been feeling over our church situation. I find I've really been missing many of the beautiful liturgical things that traditional churches do this time of year (Advent wreath lighting, classical Christmas music, Christmas pageants for the children, Christmas carols, etc.) And yet I know that after a few weeks in a traditional church I will feel bored, stuck, and busy. Maybe I should go get a Book of Common Prayer and dig out the hymnbooks and create my own Advent services for the family at home. One more thing for Mom to do, but maybe it will satisfy this spiritual itch that's been plaguing me.

4. My 3 children are very different from each other and have recently been showing me that they have 3 very different sets of needs. I need a new plan to balance this and I'm not sure what it is. My oldest, Chris, has a lot more homework as a 3rd grader and is getting more stubborn about doing it on his own. I spend more time prodding him along than I used to, which means less time with my other two.

Charlotte, in kindergarten, after a long day of holding in her huge energy supply, wants to bounce around and talk to anything that moves (and even anything that doesn't). Which drives the one trying to avoid the homework crazy.

Connor, the 2 year old, also has an abundant energy supply - but he prefers to use it to climb things. Since he's nosy too, many times he chooses to climb all over his brother to find out what he's doing, which also drives Chris crazy.

The hard thing with autism is it's nearly impossible to untangle what is normal 3rd grade behavior and what is the autism. How much does Chris have control over, and what is beyond his control? What do I do when none of the discipline I've used over the past few months puts a stop to his enormously bad attitude?

Anyway, I'm going to make a point to stop doing things mindlessly that no longer work, and work on trying to find something that does. I need to keep in mind that other people's expectations for family life, Christmas celebration, child management, and my spiritual life don't matter. Ultimately, I play to an audience of One. Maybe I can remember that this Christmas season...

Lost in my own little world

There are days, in my life as a SAHM, when I feel like I don't even surface to the world at large. On those days, like today, I wouldn't notice if one of the world's continents slipped into the ocean (unless it happened to be the one I'm living on.) There are many days where my most frequent conversational partners are a 2 year old and a cat. Or me, myself, and I - but you know people look at you funny if you do that too often.

Even though I've been at this now for almost 9 years there are days where it still strikes me as strange that I am little more than a hermit (albeit in a house, not a cave). For most of my life I've been very much a part of the world at large. What with 13 years of school, 4 years of college, 7 years in retail, and 3 years in an office I had a need to know what transpired in the world each day. Well, at least insofar as it concerned my role.

Many of these days I feel like even God must be bored watching me. Today's agenda included getting 2 (still reluctant) children off to school, washing and changing bedding, feeding a toddler and a cat breakfast and lunch, catching up on email and blog, and preparing for the evening's activities.

Tonight's agenda includes picking up the 2 kids at the bus stop, fixing after school snacks, helping the oldest with homework, making a batch of brownies, making a quick supper for all of us and the cat, driving us all to daughter's Daisy Girl Scouts investiture ceremony, coming home to do bath and bedtime routine - and going to bed.

Most of my life, if it were a novel, would be too boring to read. I guess that's why I've had a hard time lately in my quiet times with God - I keep thinking God is bored with me too. I know that I need to get over this, but I haven't quite figured out how. Maybe I need to go dig out that book by Brother Lawrence called Practicing the Presence of God. After all, washing dishes in a monastery is not exactly material for Access Hollywood.

In search of a saner Christmas

So we got back from our Thanksgiving holiday visit and got to hit the ground running. Christopher's 3rd grade holiday concert was scheduled for last night. That's right - the very day after Thanksgiving break. It took quite of bit of planning, scheduling, and goading children to get us all there in time. We made it, and it was good. But it got me thinking about the whole Christmas season in general.

I confess that the bigger and glitzier the commercial end of Christmas gets every year, the more I feel like crawling into a hole and hiding. I never understood those people who schedule a holiday cruise or trip to the tropics until recently. I loved the Christmas season as a child. All the decorating, baking, singing, gift buying, present wrapping, church pageants, Christmas music - the whole nine yards - loved every minute of it.

I do still love it - but it's different now that I'm in charge of it. My mom had just me, and by the time I was maybe 6 or 7 years old, I helped her. I've got 3 kids and a kitty. Even though my oldest 2 are technically old enough to help (and have, some) it's still quite the 3 ring circus trying to concentrate on Christmas preparations and keep the toddler and the kitty out of everything.

Even if I do get all the physical Christmas preparation done, I find that I've been missing the heart preparations. I have very little time to sit and drink in the significance of Christmas - the fact that God chose to come to Earth, to live among us as a man, to be born of a simple Jewish peasant girl and grow up in humble circumstances, to sacrifice His life for me on a rugged Roman cross, and to triumph over the powers of evil by rising from the dead. Emmanuel, God with us.

Then too there is the fact that Christ was not born on December 25th. Historians and theologians have placed the actual birth of Christ sometime around September (around the time of the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles and the Day of Atonement.) Which, symbolically, would make sense. Since Jesus knew that He would become the fulfillment of the Passover lamb by being crucified during the Passover, it makes sense that He would be born during the time the Jews celebrated the time of God's tabernacling (residing with) mankind.

Even though I know that the celebration of Christ's birth was moved to December 25th to try to draw in the pagans (who celebrated the winter solstice and the feast of Saturnalia around that time) I like the idea of celebrating the return of the light (sunlight) and the Light. I think we need to celebrate both. I find it very satisfying and I know I wouldn't make such a herculean effort without the force of tradition behind it.

But this year I would like to look deeper inside myself, deeper into the word of God, to rediscover the Word of God, who was in the beginning - for Whom everything was made, and without Whom nothing that has been made would have been made.